Very Very Far Away (VVFA) - ‘From Dissemination to Anticipation’: Democratising the future using public co-enquiries and serialised fiction podcasts

Very Very Far Away (VVFA) is a public facing research platform seeking to re-ignite future ideologies. Its methods use space exploration as a lens to examine current ideas and values which may pertain to future societies.

VVFA focuses on democratising future narratives, through exploring multiple perspectives simultaneously, and disseminating new cultural fictions. VVFA brings members of the public and experts together, using ‘co-enquiries’ organised as public think tanks. We collectively craft a web of stories capturing new potentials — future roles, future social and organisational structures, and collective aspirations — these are subsequently documented through a series of audio narratives and disseminated via podcast through online platforms. This process enables the conceptualisation of future worlds, through which newly formed ideologies can permeate the public realm.

Today’s society is based on collectively agreed upon fictions. Cultural beliefs appear to be dominated by a ‘utopia of normality’, characterised by an absence of anticipation and projection. In some occasions, future projections can be perceived as speculative predictions omitting major societal aspects such as our social, economic or political structures by primarily focusing on technological prowesses, resulting in nothing more than exercises in escapism.

Conversely, proposing Space Exploration as a lens to examine today’s narratives, encourages participants to take a step back and re-evaluate cultural values informing technological development whilst empowering them to create long term cultural projections.

VVFA methodology articulates 2 distinct approaches:
- Collaborative world creation, as an inspirational strategy established around scientific, social and ethical questioning induced by space exploration.
- Reverse archeology, or the embodiment of future narratives into designed artefacts, services, and other interventions.

In this paper we will discuss how VVFA engages with audiences generating contemporary aspirations to do with space and the very very far away, by examining previously run co-enquiries in Europe (Casa Jasmina and Officine Arduino in Turin, FHNW masterstudio in Basel, Space Studios in London).

VVFA’s dissemination emphasises the Podcast, a medium whose listenership has consistently increased during the past decade, a growth driven by mobility, reaching an audience of 73 million every months in the US for instance. We will also examine the role of this dissemination in mediating future ideologies from the bottom up, the ability to quickly rally audiences for further co-enquiries, and the underlying feedback loop model enabling an evolving content.